Communication networks have migrated from using specialized networking equipment executing on dedicated hardware, like routers, firewalls, and gateways, to virtualized network components, such as VNFs and virtual machines (VM) that may be implemented or run on general purpose hardware within a cloud infrastructure. Network management of network components—whether or not virtualized—may require implementing, from time to time, software changes across the network or across a subset of the network components. These software changes may include software patches, software updates, configuration changes, or installation/uninstallation of software.
In a cloud environment, control loop automation can be categorized into open loop or closed loop systems. Open loop systems capture telemetry and diagnostics information from the underlying cloud infrastructure (e.g. syslog, SNMP, fault and performance management events), perform a set of analytics and provide reporting or alarms to the operations team. Control loop systems play a vital role in processes implemented in a cloud based environment. For example, closed and open loops have been implemented to support fault management for limited virtual network functions such as a wide-area virtual network management framework which acts as an infrastructure provider to manage the physical resources and service provider to build and manage virtual networks on the physical resources.